In his earliest memory, Owen Pelletier is four or five years old and locked with his sister in a bedroom on a sunny day, hammering at the window pane with a toy hammer. Their parents were drinking.

Don’t worry, I’ll get us outside, he said to console her.

Pelletier only came to understand in his 30s that the trauma he experienced in his early years was at the root of what happened later in his life — dealing with addictions while jailed.

Real change for him didn’t come through the programs offered in Saskatchewan correctional centres; it began after another man who similarly tried to overcome an addiction while incarcerated introduced him to STR8 UP, an organization that works to transition former gang members out of that lifestyle.

After Pelletier’s parents broke up, his father moved to Regina and his mother soon followed with the children. He says his parents became “lost in their addiction,” and were drinking and neglecting the children.

Owen Pelletier

Teachers began to notice Pelletier and his sister were missing school. They learned what was happening at home, and social services were called. Both siblings were placed in foster care with a white family.

They weren’t abused, but were emotionally starved, Pelletier says. The love wasn’t there.

When he was 11 years old, his aunt adopted him and his sister. The aunt also had an alcohol addiction, and her way of discipline involved yelling and hitting, so he ran away, Pelletier says.

It was then that he began to experiment with drugs and alcohol, staying out all night and spending time with friends who were a negative influence.

He says he was looking to fill a void where love and belonging were missing. By then, he was breaking into vehicles and stealing to feed his addiction.

At the age of 13, Pelletier first entered the justice system and was sent to the Paul Dojack Youth Centre in Regina. He didn’t last long at Dale’s House, a now-closed home for youth, before running away. Another home for Indigenous boys was less impersonal, so he didn’t mind being there as much as other places, he says.

But he didn’t understand why he continued to use alcohol and drugs. The only addictions program available was Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

At 18, Pelletier moved to his home reserve, Cowessess First Nation and graduated high school. Although there weren’t many opportunities to be involved in crime, drugs and alcohol were available, he recalls. He moved to Saskatoon to pursue a psychology degree at the University of Saskatchewan, but left after a year and a half. He broke up with the mother of his child and returned to Regina.

“So you’re feeling low, worthless, this and that. So, you know, we go back to what we know,” he says.

That’s when Pelletier joined a gang, selling drugs and committing assaults. He was soon in and out of Regina Correctional Centre (RCC) — in for remand and out on probation.

It’s just a system, he says. There’s no love there.

“You’re just a number, you’re just a native, you’re just an Indian. Boom, in and out.”

On remand at the Regina jail, no programs, meetings or resources were available, Pelletier says. There was nothing but waiting for court appearances or release.

“The only good thing about it is that you can’t use or drink, so you’re getting clean that way, by force. You’re forced to detox, pretty much.”

An intensive addiction intervention program was implemented at the Regina jail in 2008— the Dedicated Substance Abuse Treatment Unit — but it’s only available to 20 inmates at a time and hasn’t been replicated at other institutions.

Inmates also have access to Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings. Each provincial corrections facility for youths or adults has at least one addictions worker from the provincial health authority who provides services.

Regina Correctional Centre has two addictions workers. Internal ministry program staff also provide addictions programming. Saskatoon’s jail has a program supervisor and three facilitators. Prince Albert’s has five facilitators, and at Pine Grove, the women’s jail near Prince Albert, there are three full-time and one part-time ministry staff.

In 2018, it cost the province $381,000 to operate the dedicated substance abuse treatment unit at the Regina Correctional Centre. On Sept. 9, the province provided a one-day snapshot of the number of people that were on the waitlist to access the unit’s programming: there were 111 people on the waitlist on July 31.

As well, between April 2018 and Aug. 2018, 862 inmates were admitted to addictions programs across all of the adult provincial correctional institutions.

While the ministry plans an expansion of the intensive addictions intervention program across the jails, it’s also considering body scanners and specialized contraband toilets to try to prevent drug smuggling.

There are, however, indications that not all of the drugs that are misused by inmates come into the jails that way.

Drew Wilby, the ministry’s acting assistant deputy minister for community engagement, conceded it’s possible that inmates are getting access to non-prescribed medications through other means.

Cody Lee Francis

One former inmate spoke about his experience with medications snuck out of a jail’s infirmary.

Cody Lee Francis, 30, recalls sitting in his cell, listening to the sound of a defibrillator sending electric shocks into the heart of a fellow inmate who was overdosing on what he suspects was hydromorphone.

Francis claims the drug, an opioid used to treat pain, frequently made its way out of the Regina Correctional Centre’s infirmary and into the hands of inmates without prescriptions.

It was the end of the night, and inmates had to line up outside their cells to be counted, Francis said. One of the men, who lived in a cell near him, didn’t come out and was found lying face-down. He saw guards and nurses rush to the cell, he said.

The man was successfully revived and escorted away for further medical attention.

“He looked half dead,” said Francis, who was also hiding hydromorphes in his cell at the time. Afterwards, he looked at his own stash and paused, thinking about the man a few feet away who nearly died from the same drug, he said.

“I’m like waiting to do them and stuff and then that happened, and I’m sitting in my cell after lockup and yeah, I definitely waited before I was like ‘F**k it, I’ll do it.”

Francis, who is from Regina, has spent much of his adult life in and out of jail.

He was 13 the first time he was arrested, and later became a member of the Native Syndicate gang. In 2010, he was picked up on a slew of charges including robbery, auto theft and drug offences. Francis took a plea deal, and was sentenced to 26 months in jail, 10 of which were served on remand. It was the longest period of time he spent on the inside.

Francis said he did drugs before he went to jail, mainly cocaine, but didn’t think of himself as addicted. He just liked to party. Going to jail didn’t stop him from doing drugs.

When asked if he had a hard time getting them in jail, he responded without hesitation: “Absolutely not.”

Before he got the necessary connections, he initially went through an unintentional detox. He didn’t know many people at the jail, or who might sell him drugs. He also didn’t know how bad his drug problem had become, but now realizes he was going through withdrawal, he says.

Other inmates took notice, and it wasn’t long before he was told who he could approach to get hydromorphone.

Inmates who were prescribed the drug through the jail’s infirmary would hide it in their mouths, or “tongue it,” then sell it to others, he says.

He never overdosed in jail, but his drug problem only worsened during his time there, he says. He started out with a cocaine problem, and left custody in withdrawal from opioids. After his release in 2012, he spent weeks with a high fever, suffering from diarrhea, he says.

“I think I went into jail not really with that big of an addiction issue, and I could clearly say I got out with a way heavier addiction.”

He quit the gang life and no longer uses drugs. Last fall, he took part in a relapse prevention program offered by the John Howard Society, and in February started helping the organization by doing handyman work. He’s been asked to be a mentor for the program in the future.

Getting to this point wasn’t easy. On his birthday in 2016, he made a commitment to himself that he wanted to quit doing drugs, but it took him several tries, he says. He would stay clean for a few weeks, and inevitably relapse.

“It was a struggle.”

It took two years to finally get clean. His son was one of the main reasons, he says.

“I couldn’t continue to be a gangbanger and be a father for the rest of my life.”

During his 10 months on remand, Francis would not have qualified for the Regina jail’s substance abuse program, which is only available to inmates serving a sentence.

Although he thought the program seemed informative, at the time he didn’t see value in it, he says. After his release he chose to isolate himself, focusing on skateboarding or writing to get his mind off drugs.

He suspects most of the inmates he knew in jail were dealing with drug addictions. The problem needs more attention, but the government should also consider a different approach, Francis says. Treating someone in jail for addiction isn’t the same as treating someone on the outside who voluntarily checks into rehab.

“When you’re dealing with the people in jail, I think they’re more violent. They’re more deeper into their addiction. In that situation you get a lot more people who have more serious addictions, who are willing to go the extra mile to get what they need, which in most terms turns out to be violence.”

People on remand should get access to the substance abuse program, he says.

“If a guy has known problems and he’s going through drug court, but he’s on remand, there’s nothing there to help him at all.”

Devon Napope

It was Devon Napope who introduced Owen Pelletier to STR8 UP.

Napope started experimenting with drugs when he was 13 or 14 — after the first time he was incarcerated at the age of 12. By then, although he hadn’t used drugs himself, he’d been around addictions so much that they seemed normal to him.

In some ways, he feels he was destined to follow the path into addictions his mother and grandmother went down before him, Napope says.

He was the middle child of his mother’s five boys, and his father was already absent by the time he was born.

“Coming up, that’s the only thing I knew — these addictions, drinking, drugs.”

After his first time in custody, it seemed he was surrounded by drug use and a party lifestyle.

The programs available to him as a youth in custody were related to culture, crafts and identity — but as a young Indigenous child, he didn’t have a sense of identity, he says.

“My role models were the people in the cell next to me, or my older brothers who were a problem on another unit.”

Napope has spent time at the Saskatoon provincial jail as well as the Prince Albert and Stony Mountain federal penitentiaries.

In his experience, addictions programs for inmates are viewed as mandatory for early release or to earn an easier time in custody — not as something inmates want to do, he says. He did the programs to get by, because it was expected of him.

At Stony Mountain, involvement in crafts and visits from family helped him, he says. The Saskatoon jail struck him as little more than a holding pen, without enough programs or activities, he says.

Napope is now involved with STR8 UP and shares his story publicly. He was connected with Father Andre Poilievre, STR8 UP’s founder, when he was 15. Back then, he wasn’t ready to change. Poilievre visited him week after week, giving him the only consistency he had.

Two years ago, Napope returned to Saskatoon, still using cocaine and drinking. The same friends and family members were still dealing with addictions. It was STR8 UP that helped him get into treatment and gain the confidence to find his voice, he says.

He’s been sober for nearly two years now.

“This place gave me happiness when I had none in my life. I never knew happiness without drugs and alcohol or partying. I’ve clinged to that ever since I’ve left the treatment centre. Nothing but positive things have been coming my way. I have full custody of my kids. I’m a single father. I’m in a social work program at First Nations University.”

Napope feels people in custody need more opportunities to access treatment. Some should be sent to treatment Instead of jail, he suggests.

Pelletier sought treatment at Athahkakoop Cree Nation in the spring of 2017, feeling his addictions were getting out of hand. He met Napope, who told him about STR8 UP, while going to treatment and group meetings.

“I knew that my life had more purpose and more meaning than what it was. There’s a reason why I wasn’t in the pen. I could have been in the penitentiary. There’s a reason I wasn’t in the ground. I could have been dead many times. There’s a purpose there. You start asking yourself, ‘What’s the purpose for this?’ I wanted to get well.”

When he returned to Regina, however, he lost his connection with the supports he’d developed. He began to use drugs again.

Pelletier moved with his mother and sister to Moose Jaw, away from the gang and surrounded by different people.

He’s attended treatment programs and counselling, the latter of which helped him see he had abandonment issues from his childhood experience.

Having professional counsellors available would have been beneficial — he wasn’t able to start his recovery until he was out of custody, going to meetings and being involved in the community, he says.

He moved to Saskatoon this year, having been accepted into McLeod House. He shares his story with others through his involvement in STR8 UP, which he finds therapeutic. He continues his recovery by attending meetings and going to church.

He feels there’s a void that STR8 UP is filling, he says. It’s become a calling.

“I want to be a mentor, a guide. I want to save some lives from taking the same road that I survived … to help these guys that are struggling with that life and that stuff. They don’t have to do that and I feel like they’ll listen to me because I’ve been there and I’ve done it and I’m doing well and I’ve survived through it, and I’m getting well.”

Read Parts 1 and 2 of the series, looking at the overall issue of drugs and addictions in Saskatchewan’s jails and what advocates say needs to be done on thestarphoenix.com and leaderpost.com.

Reporter’s note: The Ministry of Corrections and Policing sent Postmedia its most up-to-date figures for addictions program admissions and the Regina Correctional Centre’s dedicated substance abuse treatment unit on Sept. 9.

The Struggle Inside: Faces of recovery

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